EMF

When EMF exploded onto the scene in 1990 with Schubert Dip and their global hit “Unbelievable,” fame arrived fast—and nearly killed the creative spark that started it all. Their inventive brand of dance rock captivated audiences everywhere, but the sudden whiplash left the band disconnected from the very joy that fueled their music in the first place.

Nearly three decades later, guitarist Ian Dench says EMF has finally found that spark again. Go Go Sapiens (2023) marked the beginning of a true revival for Dench and bandmates James Atkin, Derry Brownson, Stevey Marsh, and Adrian Todd. Their latest EP, Reach for Something Higher, proves that the resurgence was more than a nostalgic moment. It’s a sustained movement forward.

We sat down with Dench to talk about EMF’s long, winding journey and why the present feels so meaningful.

Analogue: I want to ask about the return here in the bigger picture. When you look at what’s in the music now that wasn’t there before, after 30-plus years? Are you able to identify something in the water, so to speak?

Ian: Well, I think the writing of Schubert Dip was such a special moment. Before I'd met James, I'd been in a band before that had been sort of serious. We'd had two record deals, and they'd all come to nothing. I think it was such a strange moment. I’d given up my place at Oxford University, and I'd sort of sacrificed so much.

Then I met James, and you'd think I’d be desperate to make something work, but it was the opposite. It was just like, ‘Okay, I'm done with all the angst!’ And James was just so fun. We just loved what was happening with music, and we loved being with Zach and Derry. We had so much fun together. It’s funny how the fun started first and the songs came second.

James and I had such a connection; it was the joy of those moments. There's a joy in all the music that was happening. We loved the sort of English alternative scene and those hip-hop records that were coming from the States, and the acid house and electronic dance music and guitars and all that.

Then, Schubert Dip was this sudden overnight success. It was so quick, having struggled away for eight years with my previous band and having never sold a record. But we formed in October ’89. We had a record deal by, I think, April ’90. A hit record in the UK in December ’90. A number one in America, August 1991. I mean, wow, it was crazy.

Wonderful as that was, I think in terms of creativity, it really knocked us around. Suddenly, we were worried about the chart position and who thought we were cool and what other bands were doing. It sort of broke the spell of that moment of joy and happiness and freedom that we had, I think.

Strangely, 35 years later, when we did the 30th anniversary gigs and felt the love of the audience, James and I just looked at each other and said, ‘Well, should we just write some songs again?’ We'd always written. I’ve always loved writing with James. But 35 years later, there was a freedom where we had nothing to prove, you know?

I don’t know. I guess I'd exorcised something by having had another number one record with “Beautiful Liar.” I’d always felt, ‘I’ve got to do it again. I’ve got to try to do this again.’ I'd felt in a funny way that it was hollow—lovely as a hit record is, you know?—and the thing that I loved was writing with James and EMF, because it meant something more. It's about us. It’s about our lives. It's not trying to write a hit record for Beyoncé. It’s life. It’s living.

In a funny way, we recaptured that because we're older. Then James went through his own stuff. He was such a reluctant pop star. He didn't like the limelight. But he always says that when he went back and trained as a teacher and had to stand in front of a class of 14-year-olds and try and make them love music, he said that's harder than standing in front of 50,000 people with EMF. So I think we both sort of exorcised our demons and came back to that freedom and joy again. And that's what's in the new music.

Analogue: Does that make you want to put up guardrails? Have you learned how to put some up to protect that joy?

Ian: That's a really good question. I can feel it growing, but in a lovely organic way, so that's good. But what if we write another song and there's another hit record around the world? Would it just all happen again? I hope not. I hope our feet are enough. We've both got families, so we couldn't tour that much. We couldn't go that crazy.

You know, the rider these days is full of oat milk and vegan snacks. [Laughs] We go to bed early. We just love playing and spending time together. So hopefully, the wheels wouldn't fall off. Hopefully, we have the guardrails. I think we've seen the hype, and we just don't believe our own hype now.

James and I just laugh about it and enjoy it now. We love it for the good stuff, which is playing and writing. Thankfully, there aren’t too many more trappings at the moment, and the touring is just enough. It's lovely. And we're enjoying writing and recording. So I'll come back to you on that one when we have another big hit. [Laughs]

Analogue: Earlier you said that you'd been writing with James all along, or at least that's how it sounded. Can you define that?

Ian: Well, we would get together every so often. We’d play a gig a year or every couple of years. I also spent a few years in New York when we didn't play, and then we’d be like, ‘Oh, should we get together and do something?’ And we'd write a song then. When we did the box set, we included all those songs we'd done with all the one-off songs, which were great. And that sort of kept me believing that James and I had that connection.

It wasn't until around 2022 that we felt that's what we really wanted to do and put the work in. So I don’t know how to define it. I mean, on the B-Sides and Bonafides record, there are probably eight songs that we wrote in 30 years—so maybe one every couple of years. There was a moment, maybe in 2005 or 2006, when we wrote a few songs and did a rehearsal. It was brilliant, but it just wasn't the right moment. It didn't come together until 2022.

Analogue: Did you have the inkling that at some point, something official will reemerge?

Ian: You know, yes. That’s funny, because when I think back on that, I remember Stevey [Marsh], our bass player, saying, ‘This is amazing! We should make this happen,’ and I can remember feeling James wasn't ready. I said to him, ‘It'll happen when James is ready.’ I can remember looking at him being disappointed. And I remember him thinking that it's never going to happen. But I remember thinking, ‘When James is ready, it'll happen.’

Analogue: What’s in the pipeline for you from here?

Ian: Well, we are on tour next year. We've got some dates. We are doing the music cruise in the last week of January which goes from Florida to the Bahamas, which will be a lot of fun. Our dear friends Jesus Jones did it, and they said it was amazing, so we’re looking forward to that, and then I think we're going to play a few shows in the States after that—just around the South somewhere. Then we're going to be back in the States in May to play the East Coast. We're doing some shows in the UK as well, some club shows over four different weekends, and some festivals in the UK in the summer.

We are hoping to have a new album for next year. We've started writing, and that's been a lot of fun. The Reach for Something Higher EP was such a brilliant moment, and it was informed by our tour in the States in June and by the will for positive change that we felt there. We just sort of responded to that and wrote some songs while we were on tour, and it all sort of splurged out. It all just came out like that.

There's some more of that to come, I think. And it was very interesting because we just went and recorded it live after the tour, which is something we've not really done before. We always get involved in the electronics of things and manicure them a bit. But I guess we wanted to capture some of the energy and because, sadly, our dear producer Ralph Jezard died about six months ago. So we've been looking for new ways to record and and that was really exciting. We went into the church with this amazing engineer who just captured the sound, and hopefully we'll do some more of that.

VISIT: EMF

*Photo: Phil Hunt